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WORK LIFE BALANCE AND LIFE

SATISFACTION: A STUDY OF SELECT

ORGANIZATIONS

SYNOPSIS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYSESSION 2011-12

SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF

COMMERCEUNIVERSITY OF DELHI

SUBMITTED BY

MS. AMANJOT SACHDEVA

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OFDR. AJAY KUMAR SINGH

&

DR GAURI SHANKAR

1



WORK LIFE BALANCE AND LIFE SATISFACTION: A

STUDY OF SELECT ORGANIZATIONS

Introduction

Work-Life Balance is one of the core issues in HRM which is central in promoting

individual and organizational effectiveness. Work-life Balance is a broad concept including

proper prioritizing between "work" on one hand and "life" on the other. Many other terms

that are used to refer to Work Life Balance include work-family Balance, work-family

conflict, work-family integration, and family friendly policies. Over the past twenty-five

years, there has been a substantial increase in work which is felt to be due, in part by

information technology and by an intense, competitive work environment, fast pace of

change, intense pressure, constant deadlines. Long-term loyalty top to the organization and

a sense of corporate community have been eroded by a performance culture that expects

more and more from their employees yet offers little security in return.

The current context of globalization and the changing nature of work have provided the

impetus for this topic. Today the employees want it all. It is not restricted to one domain of

work or life but rather a rich synthesis of the two. The employees want the companies to

devise flexible, innovative options that give high-performing employees more choice and

control so that they can manage the competing demands of work and family.

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Women are forming a considerable chunk of the workforce, dual career couples are on the

rise, the increase in average income and rise in living standards have individuals striving

for better work atmosphere, improved family and personal life.

The concept is not restricted to men and women with families or elder/child care

responsibilities but also covers people who are single but still need to resolve work and life

issues. Ransome, (2007) introduced what he called "total responsibility burden" which

includes "recreational labor". This acknowledges the fact that individuals need to express

and satisfy their need for enjoyment and leisure. Outside formal, paid employment, there is

unpaid work, like caring responsibilities, house work, cooking, cleaning, etc. and leisure

time is just a fantasy. Competitive and customer pressures have forced companies to

rationalize and restructure, and as a consequence less people have to do more work,

(Poelmans et al., 2008). Work Life Balance should not only mean a balance between work

and family but between work and the rest of life activities. The Concept is relevant to

younger professionals without family responsibilities too. It is an all encompassing issue

that is pertinent for anyone requiring personal space. Seen this way, this concept has

relevance to a larger audience.

There are other issues to be defined vis-à-vis Work Life Balance. First is that when do we

perceive work life imbalance? If work is central to our life and family intrudes, an

individual might feel an imbalance or on the contrary if family is central and work

impinges on the time or attention to be devoted to his family, an individual may feel

affected. Another issue is “Does each individual not define his or her own optimum

3



Balance”. It is a subjective issue. A person can perfectly experience 'work-family Balance',

even though work 'weighs more' than family, and in a consistent way in the course of a

whole lifetime. Each person experiences balance in a different way, (Poelmans et al.,

2008). Thus, it becomes that particular individual's own perception or experience of a

balance.

Another critical question is whether work life balance is for the individual to achieve

and maintain or is it the responsibility of the employer? This is because life balance is

contingent on a no. of factors particular to an individual. An individual’s value system,

personality, socialization, attitudes, beliefs, expectations, motivation etc. can go a long way

in affecting his or her perceptions of Work Life Balance. On the other hand if we have to

see organizations focusing on employee satisfaction and productivity, it becomes a

responsibility for the employer to see to it that wholesome practices favoring maintaining

of a satisfactory relationship between the worker and workplace are encouraged . So

employers need to follow certain retention and attraction strategies to retain employees

which can include provisions with regard to flexible work schedules, compressed work

weeks, work sharing, telecommuting, provision of day care and elder care centers, part

time work, enhanced job mobility, flexible leave arrangements, satisfaction surveys,

training and development support, health & safety programs and other support facilities.

.

4



Work Life Balance and Stress

Work-life Balance is, literally, balancing the demands, the amount of time and effort, given

to work and the workplace, and that given to the individual’s domestic, personal, family,

and social life. A vital factor in achieving an appropriate Work Life Balance is ensuring

that the work element does not dominate, and that it is not causing damage to the individual

through the effects of negative stress. It is most unusual to find people with a Work-Life

Balance that is dominated negatively by their life outside the workplace i.e. family/outside

interests intrudes less. It is almost always the workplace activity that dominates and often

does so negatively.

The increased awareness of the importance of managing stress and Work Life Balance

effectively has given rise to approaches such as time management, managing stress,

managing personal development, and related approaches such as coaching and mentoring.

The tools and techniques within these approaches are valuable in helping individuals to

manage stress and Work Life Balance more successfully.

Gender differences across industry and Work Life Balance

Work life imbalance may strike anyone but it tends to be more conspicuous in some

industries than others and it may be more prevalent in some groups than others. In a study

that was done about Work Life Balance among women IT professionals, a common

perception is that women drop out of the work force once they get married. But the study

showed that marital status does not lead to women dropping out but they moved within the

industry. So it is not marital status but parental status that affects Work Life Balance. When

5



children come into the picture, the Work Life Balance is affected. Dependent care also

directly impacts Work-Life Balance.

It is usually believed that organizations, which have policies on Work-Life Balance, would

tend to have more Work-Life Balance. But it was found that only multi-national

organizations had extremely progressive Work-Life Balance. Therefore it was

hypothesized that women in multi-national corporations had a higher Work-Life Balance

than those in Indian organizations.

ICICI Bank Ltd is an example for having the largest number of women employees in the

banking sector in India. They have a number of options and opportunities which allow for

their women employees a more harmonious work culture vis. a vis. the family. Self-

esteem - positively contributes to Work Life Balance. Doctors don't really have a Work

Life Balance. A large part of them have a very low time Balance but a very high

satisfaction balance and their self-esteem is very high. A study on gynecologists showed

that their satisfaction balance was really high because of the satisfaction of creating a new

life, which was compensation enough for any kind of time imbalance.

In medicine, specialties with shorter and more predictable hours tend to be dominated by

females. Women now make up 41 percent of new M.D.s nationwide, but less than 30

percent of physicians under the age of 35 practicing emergency medicine or general

surgery. Meanwhile in other women friendly occupations, 70 percent of gynecologists and

nearly 60 percent of dermatologists in that same age bracket are women.

6



Review of Literature

Review of Literature constitutes an important section in any research study, which

provides a critical overview of various dimensions of any subject, which have been

explored over different frames and it helps us to understand the research methodology,

research findings and to identify the gaps that exists in the literature, which motivates for

the further research in this area. The following discussion is an attempt to provide an

overview regarding different aspects of Work Life Balance that have been critically

examined both in national as well as in international context.

In speaking of a concept of Work Life Balance there seems to be an assumption that the

scale of balance is tilting more towards the work i.e. work predominates and hence the

increasing need for a balance with life. Earlier research has found Work Life Balance to be

positively related to both organizational and individual outcomes. Giving the employees

flexibility, information, and financial assistance can improve the organization's financial

performance and raise Employee Satisfaction and Labor Productivity, (Konrad & Mangel,

2000), Employee-organizational commitment and attachment, and organizational

citizenship behavior, (Lambert, 2000).

Work Life Balance is also expected to have a positive impact on employee engagement.

Employee engagement is essential to obtain high performance. Engaging employees--

especially by giving them participation, freedom, and trust is the most comprehensive

response to achieve self-realization and self-actualization.

7



Babazono et al.(2005) in a study on the influences of Work place stress on Mental Health

used the “Work Requirement Degree Control Model “ which is one of the well regarded

workplace stress theories and found that significant items relating to problematic mental

health for factory work were “too much competition”(high degree of work requirement),

“cannot keep up with new technology”(lack of control) and for R&D or office Work “too

much trouble at work” ( high degree of work requirement ) and “feel Pressed for

time”( loss of control).

Marchand & Blanc (2010) in a study among employees in Canada found that it was not

Occupation but Social Support at Work which decreased the Psychological distress

experienced by the employees. Enterprises thus have a role to play and pay special

attention to how colleagues and supervisors act to help workers complete tasks.

Madsen et al. (2005) in a study suggest that high work-family conflict is related to lower

levels of desirable work and non-work factors (e.g., organizational commitment, health);

however, they did not study the direction of these relationships. For example, work-family

conflict can lead to lower organizational commitment, while health problems and

management/leadership concerns can be responsible for increased work-family conflict. In

addition, these results also support the spillover theory that states that negative spillover

from one role to another occurs when the problems, conflicts, or energy in one role has

strained and preoccupied an individual, making it difficult to effectively and positively

8



participate in another, and positive spillover is just the opposite. The research suggests that

work-to-family and family-to-work conflict are related to organizational commitment.

This study also suggests the mental health and physical health are related to organizational

commitment. In the case of mental health, it appears that all three organizational

commitment components are contributors to this relationship (loyalty, involvement, and

identification). However, the strongest relationship appears to be with work involvement.

An employee's health, both physical and mental is an indicator of the level of involvement

an employee may have at work. Physical health is also related to organizational

commitment, but not because of loyalty. An employee's physical health is related to the

level of involvement he or she can have at work. An employees' pride and identification

with a company may decrease if he or she does not feel physically well. Overall when

employees feel good, they are more loyal, involved, and committed to their organizations.

Assisting employees in improving their health can increase overall organizational

commitment.

Beham & Sonja (2010) in a study found that perceived organizational time expectations,

psychological job demands and job insecurity were found to be negatively related to

employee satisfaction with Work life Balance and these were affected by work to family

conflict. Social support at work and job control revealed positive relationships with

satisfaction with Work life Balance but contrary to predictions this association remained

even after controlling for work to family conflict.

9



Hammer et al. (2008) in their study “Development and Validation of a Multidimensional

Measure of Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB)” developed and validated a

measure of FSSB which is a multidimensional construct with four subordinate dimensions

viz. emotional support, instrumental support, role modeling behaviors , and creative work-

family management.. They found FSSB to be positively linked with work family conflict,

work family positive spillover, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions.

Umehara et al. (2007) in their study “Association of Work related Factors with

Psychological Job Stressors and Psychosomatic Symptoms among Japanese Pediatricians”

found that longer working hours per week was significantly associated with job demand,

greater job control and more psychosomatic symptoms whereas more workdays with no

overtime was significantly associated with lower job demand, greater job control and fewer

psychosomatic symptoms. So according to them controlling these factors could be

important for reducing the job stressors among the pediatricians.

Cieri et al. (2002) identified the following Work Life Balance strategies which employers

offer viz. part time work, study leave, flexible start and finish times, work from home on

adhoc basis, job share, rostered days off, paid parental leave, flexi time, use flex or

rostered days as half days, telecommuting, 48/52 working year, career break, compressed

work week. They also investigated as to how much percent of the employees avail these

options and identified the barriers to implementation and maintenance of Work Life

Balance strategies.

10



Ahola et al. (2008) in their study “ Burnout in relation to Age in the Adult Working

Population “ in a nationally representative sample of adult population in Finland found that

age was differently related to symptoms of burnout. Burnout was related to age among

women. It was positive in the late work years, and non-existent in outside most active

family years. Burnout prevalence was found more among the younger workers whereas in

aging women, the burnout prevalence was highest among the older workers. Among men

the association was positive in middle age and non- existent otherwise. The level of

education, type of employment, work in service sector, working hours, and marital status

did not have a profound effect on these associations.

Lawton & Tulkin (2010) in their study on “Work-family Balance, Family Structure and

Family-friendly Employer programs” investigated the relationship between employer

policies and family structure on conflicts between work and family. They explored the

importance of Work Family Balance policies regarding flexibility, telecommuting,

adjusting one’s schedule, and ability to be absent from work for family needs. These

policies were examined considering family structure, that is, for employees with and

without children, and for married and non-married employees. The results indicated that

the presence of children in the household was the most important family structure factor,

regardless of marital status, such that having children increased the likelihood of work-

family conflict. Of the three family-friendly policies, enabling employees to leave work for

family needs and events is the most important for increasing work-family Balance.

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An organization called “Managing Work life Balance International” has undertaken a range

of extensive research projects for both public and private sector organizations in Australia.

It has highlighted new trends and interesting findings in the areas of Work/life Balance,

flexible work arrangements, diversity management etc.

Full-time workers are finding it increasingly difficult to achieve Work/life Balance and

many especially women would like to reduce their hours or go part time. The findings are

the result of a survey of 2,803 workers by the University of South Australia's Centre for

Work + Life conducted in preparing the Australian Work and Life Index 2010.

According to the survey, a quarter of women and one-fifth of men working full-time are

unhappy with their Work/life Balance, the no. of such people that has increased over the

past three years. The percentage of employees who claim that work often or always

interferes with activities outside work has increased from 19.8% in 2007 to 24.2 % in

2010.

Women are finding it difficult to work longer hours and meet their personal commitments,

with 60.8 % saying they often or always feel pressed for time compared to 47.2% of male

respondents. Mothers, in particular, are scrambling to do everything they want to do: 69.4

% reported that they were almost always pressed for time, compared to 58 % of the

fathers.

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Three fourths of part-time workers were satisfied with their Work/life Balance: over 10

percentage point more than full-time employees. Significantly, the decline in working

hours some employees experienced during the global financial crisis has not produced an

improved Balance, with the centre's work/life index, a composite measure of work/life

interference, with 0 denoting very low interference and 100 very high

interference, remaining steady on about 43 over the past three years."Work-life index

scores have stayed fairly steady over the period with no sign of a fall associated with the

2009 decline in aggregate hours: in fact there was a slight increase in the Work-Life index

in that year, suggestive of worse Work-Life outcomes in the downturn, despite lower

hours," the report says. The 10 per cent of women working long full-time hours (48+)

reported the worst work/life index score – 57.1 – of all employees.

Work Life Balance in IT sector

Despite a high disposable income and the glamour of consumerism, employees in the

information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services sector face problems of Work Life

Balance.

Ata et al. (2008) in a cross-sectional survey of regularly employed information technology

(IT) Engineers with preschool children in Japan examined the gender difference in WFC,

relationship of WFC with outcomes, and predictors of WFC by gender. Data from 78 male

and 102 female respondents were analyzed. There was no significant gender difference in

total level of WFC. However, the level of work interference with family (WIF) was

significantly higher in males than in females and the level of family interference with work

13



(FIW) was significantly higher in females. Regarding outcomes, WIF was significantly

related to depression and fatigue in both genders.

The IT professionals tend to have long work hours the spillover effect of which is

detrimental to their personal lives and the distinction between work and life becomes more

'blurred' than for more traditional occupations. Despite this general perception of the Work-

Life boundary, their results have indicated that intrusion of work into private life for this

group of workers still has a substantial impact on work-related attitudes. Work-life

variables affect their trust in the organization which plays a mediating role in these

variables' relationship to job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Their results

suggest that in this industry, where employees are relatively individualistic in orientation,

highly marketable and unlikely to show attachment to a single organization, mutual gains

for employee and employer can be attained by an accommodating approach to non-work

commitments which may lead to greater organizational attachment.

The main reason for many IT professionals having a lopsided Work-Life Balance is the

long working hours which leaves them with little time for themselves or their families

which affects their mental and physical health.

The long working hours and work overload is typical of the IT industry. Though most IT

firms have a five-day week, the expectations and workload is going up. The Companies in

an unsure economy are reluctant to hire and the workload on the existing staff goes up.

14



There are also long intervals between projects when many software professionals are sent

to training sessions to keep them occupied which de-motivates them as they feel that they

are not competent enough or that their potential is not adequately used.

The skewed Work-Life Balance affects health and family life and causes mental and

physical health problems and also affects interpersonal relationships.

Tourism & Hospitality Sector and Work Life Balance

Today’s travel and hotel professionals are markedly different from what they were five

years ago, in terms of their career growth aspirations, and their willingness to make the

personal adjustments that the hotel industry career so often demands. Owing to the

industry’s unique characteristics, the task of finding and holding onto good people is

becoming increasingly difficult and challenging.

There are also various tough challenges in the travel, tourism and hospitality sector in

India. The working hours can be odd and irregular, including night duties and working on

weekends and holidays. And also these jobs may also involve extensive travel to different

destinations calling for long hours / days away from family.

The recent study by Pocock et al. (2007), entitled “Work, Life and Time: The Australian

Work and Life Index”, argues that longer hours worked ‘are consistently associated with

worse work–life outcomes on all our work–life measures’. The findings suggest that there

is an unhealthy acceptance of long working hours, especially in the service industries of

15



hospitality and tourism. There is little flexibility in the way that such workers conduct their

social/family lives leading to employees leaving the industry, not just the organization,

further exacerbating the labor shortages in the industry.

The research by Cullen & McLaughlin (2006) offers a different perspective on the Work

Life Balance issue. Cullen & McLaughlin discuss the notion of ‘presenteeism’ defined as

‘an overwhelming need to put in more hours or, at the very least, appear to be working very

long hours’. They argue that there are three rationales that reinforce ‘presenteeism’ as a

managerial value in hotels. Firstly, the hotel managers believe that they have a duty to

provide emotional support to their staff and need to be available to provide counseling to

the staff. Secondly, the hotel managers see themselves as the face of the hotel and need to

be continually present. Finally, it is the very nature of the industry, the constancy and

complexity of running a hotel that is open at all times, that makes it necessary that

managers be available for longer hours. All of this ‘presenteeism’ impacts negatively on

Work Life Balance and life satisfaction.

Research by Doherty (2004) in examining Work Life Balance for women in the hospitality

industry found that it were the very long hours and the lack of flexibility that deterred

women from seeking senior levels. Doherty found that ‘a male model of a career based on

commitment in the form of long hours persists’. She argues that the long hours culture is

counterproductive and that initiatives such as Barclay's Technology Services ‘Go Home on

Time Days’ and campaigns to work smarter, not harder, were initiatives to emulate in the

hospitality industry.

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As a consequence of the work demands in the Hospitality industry, there is a high use of

alcohol culture. Factors such as the hospitality industry's unstable working hours, low

emotional support and the number and type of customer interactions encourage drinking

both on duty and after work.

It is the work by Karatepe & Uludag (2007) on work–life conflict, exhaustion and

motivation in the hotel industry however, that is critical to the development of a framework

on Work Life Balance in the tourism and hospitality industries. These authors found that

frontline employees in the hotel industry ‘who had difficulty in spending time with their

family and/or social commitments as a result of their job-related responsibilities were more

susceptible to elevated levels of emotional exhaustion’. The study also found that the

increased emotional exhaustion experienced by the frontline hotel employees due to a no.

of problems faced including irregular work schedules, long working hours and heavy

workloads increased their intentions to leave the organization.

Strategies to address Work Life Balance Issues

There is a substantial amount of literature providing strategies for addressing Work Life

Balance issues. Many of these focus on flexibility in terms of time at work and scheduling

of workloads. Many Company-based strategies to alleviate the impact of work–life conflict

have been introduced in organizations which vary from paid special leave to care for

dependents, telecommuting, flexi time, taking time off for study etc..

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Cieri et al. (2005) found that the most frequently used strategies to improve the Work Life

Balance included part-time work, study leave, flexible starting and finishing times, working

at home on an ad hoc basis and job sharing.

The Cieri et al. (2007) study also examined the barriers to the use of these options and

found that ‘insufficient involvement of and communication with senior management’ was

one of the most consistently cited barriers along with the ineffective implementation of the

strategies and the lack of communication with staff.

Work Life Balance and Life Satisfaction

It is a common research finding is that job satisfaction is correlated with life satisfaction,

(Rain, 1991). This correlation is reciprocal, meaning people who are satisfied with life tend

to be satisfied with their job and people who are satisfied with their job tend to be satisfied

with life. However, some research has found that job satisfaction is not significantly related

to life satisfaction when other variables such as non-work satisfaction and core self-

evaluations are taken into account, (Rode, 2004). In the other hand, life satisfaction was

defined as an individual’s global assessment of his or her life in positive terms, (Diener et

al., 1999). Life satisfaction is also defined as an overall assessment of feelings and attitudes

about one’s life at a particular point in time ranging from negative to positive. Subjective

life satisfaction is a measure of an individual's perceived level of wellbeing and happiness.

It is frequently assessed in surveys, by asking individuals how satisfied they are with their

own lives.

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Documented findings identify a wide range of institutional, economic and ecological

determinants of life satisfaction. However, while a wide variety of variables has been

suggested as determinants of life satisfaction the impact of tensions between work and

family on life satisfaction has not been widely tested. The few studies in this direction were

conducted by Greenhaus et al. (2003), Saraceno et al. (2005) and Wallace et al. (2007).

Saraceno et al. (2005) used the 2003 EQLS (European quality of Life Survey) data to

verify whether the variables they found crucial for defining the work-family balance such

as gender and household status as well as the country of residence are related to

individuals' satisfaction with family life. They found no clear relationship and concluded

that although individuals with young children perceive the greatest difficulties in combing

paid employment and childrearing, these difficulties do not result in any clear differences

in satisfaction with one's own family life, Saraceno et al. (2005). Wallace et al. (2007) went

further and using the same dataset tested the impact of the perception of work-family

balance on life satisfaction, finding only minor negative effects.

Greenhaus et al. (2003) examined the relation between work–family balance and quality of

life among professionals employed in public accounting. Three components of work–

family balance were assessed; time balance (equal time devoted to work and family),

involvement balance (equal involvement in work and family), and satisfaction balance

(equal satisfaction with work and family). For individuals who invested substantial time in

their combined work and family roles, those who spent more time on family than work

experienced a higher quality of life than balanced individuals who, in turn, experienced a

higher quality of life than those who spent more time on work than family.

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Matysiak et al. (2010) in their study investigated the relationship between work-family

tensions and life satisfaction and found that the employed are more satisfied with life than

the non-employed as long as the work-family tensions they experience are not too strong.

The feeling of an excessive workload due to professional or family obligations leads to a

substantial reduction in life satisfaction. Women who experience work-family conflict tend

to be less satisfied with life than housewives. They measured tensions between family and

work with a subjective assessment of time-based and strain-based conflict. They tested

whether the experience of work-family tensions measured by these indicators lowers the

satisfaction with life and whether certain structural and institutional settings (family policy,

labor market structures) and gender norms mediate the relationship between life

satisfaction and work-family balance.

They found that Strain-based conflict is much lower in the Nordic countries, Benelux and

France and German speaking countries while it is very large in Central and Eastern

European countries, Bulgaria and Romania and the candidate countries. Strain-based

conflict is slightly higher for women except in the new Member States where 32% of men

and 29% of women experience pressure at work and at home against 52% and 54% in the

EU as a whole. As women are more overloaded and stressed than their partners, they have

a tendency to believe that their work hinders them from performing their parental role.

Work-family life balance depends greatly on the number and age of children in the

household. Time balance decreases with the number of children; it is particularly low for

20



working women with 3 children and more. Strain-based conflict also rises with the number

of children.

So far as the impact of work-family balance on life satisfaction in the EU is concerned

they found that family obligations do not only result in lower life satisfaction but, on the

contrary, couples with children who can rely on family support are happier than the

childless or non-partnered or those lacking financial, moral or health aid from their family

nor friends. The only exception is the single parents who are even less satisfied with life

than the non-partnered persons, living alone or with parents. They also found that

employed Europeans enjoy higher life satisfaction than the non-employed.

Need for the Study

The concept of Work Life Balance has many ramifications for Human Resource

Professionals and Management. Having a right balance between work and family is

important. There is a no. of factors which affect Work Life Balance. It is necessary that

these factors and their effect are identified. It is also imperative for the Employers to

address work life issues through understanding what employees want and proactively

initiate strategies and programs to address Work life Conflicts & Imbalances. Besides

Work Life balance is just one of the numerous factors that affect Life Satisfaction as a

whole. There have been very few studies done in this regard. Through this study the effect

of Work Life Balance on an overall Personal and Professional well being of an individual

Viz. Life Satisfaction will also be studied. This research study aims to study some of the

multifarious implications of Work Life Balance but from a sectoral perspective, so the

21



research will cover select organizations in the IT and Tourism & Hospitality Sectors, these

sectors being one of the most susceptible to work life conflicts because of the spillover

effects of a no. of organizational and personal variables.

Objectives of the Study

Based upon the observations and findings about Work Life Balance in literature in general

and in the industries viz. IT and Tourism & Hospitality in particular, the research seeks to

investigate the following in the identified sectors:

1. To understand the affect of individual personality Traits on Work Life Balance.

HO1: Individual’s Personality traits have no significant affect on Work Life Balance.

HA1: Work Life Balance is influenced by Individual’s Personality traits.

2. To study the types of Employer Strategies for employees to achieve Work Life Balance

and their efficacy. The employees preference for and use of these strategies will be

researched. It is considered that different types of Employer strategies to achieve Work

life Balance tend to have more positive outcomes.

HO2: Availability of different types of Employer Strategies to address work life issues

has no significant influence on the perceived Work Life Balance.

HA2: Perceived Work Life Balance changes with availability of different types of

Employer strategies to address Work Life Issues.

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3. To study Work Life Balance with respect to demographic variables like Age, Gender

and Marital Status. It is sought to know whether young people, Females and Married

individuals will tend to have a lower Work Life balance.

HO3a: An individual’s age has no affect on an individual’s Work Life Balance.

HA3a: Age has a bearing on an individual’s Work Life Balance.

HO3b: Females do not differ significantly from Males with respect to Work Life

Balance.

HA3b: Females differ from males with respect to Work Life Balance.

HO3c: Married employees do not differ significantly from unmarried employees with

respect to Work Life Balance.

HA3c: Marital status has an influence on Work Life Balance.

4. To know the affect of Family Structure on Work Life Balance. It is to be seen whether:

a) Families with Children tend to have a lower Work Life Balance than those without

Children.

b) Whether Nuclear/ joint family structure affects Work Life Balance.

HO4a: The no. of children in the family does not impact Work Life Balance.

HA4a: No. of children influences Work Life Balance.

HO4b: Family Structure (nuclear/joint) does not affect Work life Balance.

HA4b: Work Life Balance is affected by the Family Structure.

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5. To understand the affect of level of Management and Income on the Work Life

Balance. It is to be seen whether a higher level of Management and greater Income

increases the perceived Work Life Balance.

HO5a: There is no significant difference between the Top, Middle and Lower level

Management with regard to Work Life balance.

HA5a: Level of Management affects Work Life Balance.

HO5b: Income of the employee does not affect his Work Life Balance.

HA5b: Income affects Work Life Balance.

6. To study the impact of Work Life Balance on Life satisfaction. Lower work life

balance is considered to be directly related to lower Life Satisfaction.

HO6: Work Life Balance has no significant affect on Life Satisfaction.

HA6: Work Life Balance affects Life Satisfaction.

7. To determine which of the two industries investigated has the lowest life Satisfaction

overall.

HO7: The IT and Tourism & Hospitality industry do not differ with respect to Life

Satisfaction.

HA7: IT industry differs from Tourism & Hospitality industry with regard to Life

Satisfaction.

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Research Methodology

Work life Imbalance may strike anyone but it tends to be more conspicuous in some

industries than in others. High workload and stress-related jobs are said to be those of IT

Professionals, Tourism and Hospitality Professionals, Air traffic controllers, Medical

Professionals, Law and Order enforcement agencies like Police, Army etc. And the stress is

because of the unexpectedness in the job. For policemen don't know when a law and order

problem will arise. Air traffic controllers are expected to maintain the same level of

discrimination for the entire eight-hour shift. Doctors and Nurses are very much affected by

the stress of their environment and unusual hours of work and Banking is no longer the

9.00 A.M to 5.00 P.M job it used to be.

Though the sectors experiencing constraints on Work Life Balance are many, this study

will however be restricted amongst the employees in IT and Tourism & Hospitality

industry. The study will initially use two focus groups consisting of 12-15 employees from

each industry to gain initial insights into the perceptions , opinions and attitudes of the

employees towards the issue of Work Life Balance, so that these can be further elaborated

and exhaustively studied and incorporated into a self administered questionnaire . The

Sample unit will be employees working in select organizations in the IT and Tourism &

Hospitality Industry. These will be selected using a Non Probability Judgmental sampling

technique with a view to take representative samples from both large and small

organizations as large organizations will tend to have some Work Life Balance

programs/measures to address Life Balance issues as compared to small organizations.

Stratified sampling will be used to stratify the respondents in top, middle and lower

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management within which random samples elements will be taken according to quotas

assigned for each level of management. A self administered questionnaire will be

distributed amongst a sample of around 100 employees in each industry i.e. IT and Tourism

& Hospitality covering various demographic categories like Age, Gender, Marital Status

and Income etc. across different levels of Management . Hypothesis will be framed for

some of the outlined objectives and these shall be tested using specific tests of hypothesis

like ANOVA, Chi Square etc. Other research techniques like factor analysis etc will be

used to analyze and summarize the factors affecting Work Life Balance viz. employer

strategies/initiatives, positive and negatives outcomes related to Work Life Balance and

Life Satisfaction. Different types of rating Scales will be used to get responses from the

respondents to compute overall Scores on different Variables.

Tentative Chapter Scheme

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Chapter 1: Introduction.

Objectives and Rationale for the Study

Scope and Limitations of the study

Chapter 2: Review of Literature.

Chapter 3: Profile of the Selected Organizations.

Chapter 4: Data and Research Methodology.

Chapter 5: Findings and Analysis.

Chapter 6: Summary and Conclusions.

Bibliography

Appendices

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synopsis 7th sept 6 pmfinal of ms amanjot sachdeva

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